9/10 startups fail (90%). Of the 10% that succeed, 90% do not payout to anyone but the investors and founders with preferred shares. That is to say, there is a 1% chance those shares pay out to you, the non-preferred share holder.

So take the current strike price * # of shares offered * .01 = how much they are actually worth.

So, if they are offering you 100,000 shares 100,000 * .01 = 1,000 1,000 * $1 = $1,000

The shares are worth $1,000 dollars. So you can accept $89,000, or they can bolster the share amounts, or they can change the shares to prefered.

EDIT: I realized now you said ESOP - so these are actually tradable shares on the stock market. They are worth face value of the stock price right now then, and it's up to you to decide if you will get wealthier or poorer based on this investment.

If you want to be pedantic, this is a good article with the things you need to consider with regards to how you can collect these funds and the tax considerations: https://cleartax.in/s/taxation-on-esop-rsu-stock-options